Recently, Governor Cuomo signed Bill S. 6577/A. 8421 (the %u201CHarassment Statute%u201D) into law. The Harassment Statute will significantly expand potential liability for all New York employers for any form of unlawful harassment%u2014not just sexual harassment. If you are an employer in New York, it is strongly recommended that you thoroughly review the Harassment Statute in detail.
New York's competitive bidding statutes require contracts for public work to be awarded to the lowest responsible and responsive bidder. The statutes are designed to reject a contractor who is unqualified or whose bid is not responsive to the criteria in the request for bids. Although the law does not define "responsible", it has been interpreted as meaning that the low bidder has sufficient skill, experience, financial resources and integrity to perform the contract.
Contractors should be aware that the failure to define material terms in their construction contracts, such as the term "costs" in a change order provision, can lead to the admission of "parol evidence" (extrinsic evidence outside of the contract) to clarify the ambiguity
For years there have been complaints in the construction industry about owners and upstream contractors failing to issue timely payments to their downstream contractors, subcontractors and suppliers and, at the threat of declaring them in breach of contract, keeping them working on the job in spite of such late (or non-) payment.
In the case of Joseph Palmisano, et al. v. CrowderGulf, LLC, et al., the United States District Court for the District Court of New Jersey held that corporate officers are not individually liable for a failure to pay prevailing wages under New Jersey's Prevailing Wage Act.
